Assessing social media use in Dutch municipalities: Political, institutional, and socio-economic determinants

What explains the degree of e-participation? A comparison of the adoption of digital participation platforms in Oslo, Melbourne and Madrid

E-participation research has mainly been concerned with the spread of e-participation technologies, but less with why some government organizations choose to use digital tools to consult citizens (e-consultation) whereas others go further and include them in the decision-making processes (e-decision making). This article is an in-depth, comparative case-study of the adoption of e-participation platforms in Oslo, Melbourne and Madrid, and develops an alternative explanatory framework using theories of institutional entrepreneurship and change. It shows that conventional adoption theory – focusing on resource slack, socio-economic development, competition and top-down mandates – is not able to account for the differences between these cases, and argues that the degree of e-participation should be understood as an outcome of the type and agenda of change agents, the level of institutional discretion, the strength of institutional defenders, and the resources of the change agents.

Blockchain Use-Case in Ballistics and Crime Gun Tracing and Intelligence: Towards Overcoming Gun Violence

In the United States and around the world, gun violence has become a long-standing public safety concern and a security threat, due to violent gun-related crimes, injuries, and fatalities. While legislators and lawmakers have attempted to mitigate its threats through legislation, research on gun violence confirms the need for a comprehensive approach to gun violence prevention. This entails addressing the problem in as many ways as possible, such as through legislation, new technological advancements, re-engineering supply, and administrative protocols, and so on. The research focuses on the technological, supply, and administrative aspects, in which we propose a manner of managing gun-related data efficiently from the point of manufacture/sale, as well as at points of transfers between secondary sellers for the improvement of criminal investigation processes. Making data more readily available with greater integrity will facilitate successful investigations and prosecutions of gun crimes. Currently, there is no single and uniform platform for firearm manufacturers, dealers, and other stakeholders involved in firearm sales, dissemination, management, and investigation. With the help of Blockchain technology, gun registry, ownership, transfers, and, most importantly, investigations, when crimes occur, can all be managed efficiently, breaking the cycle of gun violence. The identification of guns, gun tracing, and identification of gun owners/possessors rely on accuracy, integrity, and consistency in related systems to influence gun crime investigation processes. Blockchain technology, which uses a consensus-based approach to improve processes and transactions, is demonstrated in this study as a way to enhance these procedures. This is the first study to explore and demonstrate the utility of Blockchain for gun-related criminal investigations using a design science approach.

Organizational models for social media institutionalization: An exploratory analysis of Dutch local governments

Social media institutionalization in public administrations has been conceptualized as the final stage of the adoption process. However, an understanding of organizational models for social media institutionalization in public administration is lacking. This exploratory study of Dutch local governments contributes to the literature by identifying how governments organize social media institutionalization. Drawing on an original questionnaire on social media adoption, two advanced cases were selected based on their high level of social media institutionalization: Utrecht and Eindhoven. For each case, in-depth semi structured interviews were carried out aiming at detecting institutionalization patterns. Our study highlights that, in contrast with the literature on stages of technological maturity, social media institutionalization shows two different organizational models: a centralized model, based on trust, with highly structured and formalized policy guides, low experimentation, formal training and evaluation supported by standardized reports; and a distributed model, based on control, with simple guiding principles, higher levels of experimentation, training build on a “learn by doing” basis, and individual evaluation mechanisms. These results enrich current academic understanding of social media institutionalization and may guide public officials involved in social media institutionalization practices.

Digital communication in Swiss cities: A closer look at the low adoption and usage of social media platforms in a technologically advanced and innovative country

While a vast majority of local governments in Europe are communicating on social media, the situation differs in few states. Although Switzerland is often depicted as a technological advanced and innovative country, cities are still largely resisting the temptation to share information on social media platforms. In this study, we rely on a survey distributed to the communication managers of all cities over 10,000 inhabitants in Switzerland to uncover the reasons explaining this behavior. This approach is preferred to understand what motivates or prevents cities from communicating on social media, focusing mainly on perceptions of risks related to these platforms. Results indicate that some factors identified in the literature on public sector organizations slow down the social media adoption and usage at the local level; but interestingly, the conservative approach to social media preferred by numerous cities also plays a major role in explaining cities’ absence on these platforms.

Weibo to the Rescue? A study of social media use in citizen–government relations in China

Purpose

In this study, the authors explain citizens’ adoption of social media in citizen–government relations in China, a country that blends an authoritarian governance regime with limited tolerance of and responsiveness to online citizen participation.

Design/methodology/approach

Original survey data were gathered using a vignette survey among 307 respondents living in the People’s Republic of China. Multivariate analysis of the data was used to test four hypotheses and identify antecedents of Chinese citizens’ social media adoption for “thin” participation purposes.

Findings

Citizens’ perceived impact of “thin” participation, citizens’ skills and capabilities and citizens’ trust in institutions are significantly associated with citizens’ social media adoption. Social media anxiety was found not to be associated with Chinese citizens’ social media adoption.

Research limitations/implications

This study demonstrates how vignettes can be used to study adoption of technological and institutional innovations in an authoritarian governance regime and how in this context existing adoption theories can be extended with notions of institutional trust to adequately explain citizens’ adoption of technological and institutional innovations in citizen–government relations.

Social implications

Although some argue that social media activity could potentially mitigate democratic deficits caused by the state, in the case of China, the intertwinement of state and social media platform renders this argument unsustainable.

Originality/value

This study is one of the few systematic survey studies focusing on Chinese citizens’ adoption of social media in citizen–government relations.

Let's talk about risks: a pillar framework for social media risk management in memory institutions

Purpose

While memory institutions' use of social media has proliferated, research and scholarly literature on risks, resulting from social media use, memory institutions' social media risk-aware culture and, in particular, social media risk management remains scant. This study addresses this knowledge gap and identifies aspects of social media risk management from other sectors that could inform the cultural heritage sector.

Design/methodology/approach

This research involves a review of the scholarly and professional literature that contribute to social media risk management discourses. These include those that discuss the different categories of social media risks, social media policies, risk-aware culture and social media risk management strategies and processes. Works discussing social media risk management models and frameworks are also included in the review. Based on the insights gained from these reviews, a pillar framework to guide social media risk management in memory institutions is developed.

Findings

The proposed framework outlines the baseline components relevant for the cultural heritage sector and underlines the evolving and continual nature of these components. Elements particularly important to memory institutions are highlighted. Notably, that social risks as a risk category must be recognised. Also noted is that the conventional apolitical stance still taken by many memory institutions need to be reviewed. The importance of memory institutions to be not overly risk-averse to the point of failing to take advantage of the affordances of social media platforms, thereby stifling potential innovations around services and engagement with their users/audience is discussed.

Originality/value

This research offers an extensive review of the social media risk management literature, both scholarly and professional across different domains. The ensuing insights inform the development of a pillar framework to guide social media risk management in memory institutions. The framework outlines a baseline mapping of the governance, processes and systems components. The expectation is that this framework could be extended to account for contextual and situational requirements at more granular levels to reflect the nuances, variances and complexities that exist among different types of memory institutions and to account for varying attributes, mandates and priorities in the cultural heritage sector.

National memory institutions' social media policies and risk management: a content analysis

Purpose

Among the current discourses around social media risk management (SMRM) is whether institutions perceive social media (SM) as more of an opportunity to be embraced and regulated, or a risk to be avoided or mitigated, how this is reflected in their policies and how institutional stance reflects their regulation and management of SM use and practices. There is currently no scholarly literature that addresses these for the memory sector where SM use has proliferated. This research aims to address this gap by putting a focus on national memory institutions (MIs), whose strategies and operations are often governed by a public/civic mandate.

Design/methodology/approach

This research involves a comprehensive literature review and a content analysis. The review includes studies that have analysed institutional SM policies in other sectors. The review informs our content analysis both in terms of approaches and in terms of identifying areas for comparisons. Following an initial scoping review and a close inspection, a sample of eight policies of national MIs were included in the content analysis.

Findings

The content analysis led to the identification of 8 core themes and 36 sub-themes. The main themes are concerned with account management, audience management, rules for use, protecting institutional interests, legal considerations, the purpose of the policy, nature of postings and referencing information. Also emerged from the findings are a few gaps that we expect will provide a platform for further discourses with regard to the potentially complex role SM policies have in MIs and the broader cultural heritage sector in relation to their public/civic mandates.

Originality/value

This is the first close SM policy analysis for the memory sector focusing on national MIs. This research contributes insights into how national-level MIs tend to frame the opportunities and the risk of SM use, the ways in which they govern SM usage and their different approaches to SMRM. The findings have implications for SM policy development and implementations, and further iterations of SM policies in the memory sector.

Peer review

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-09-2020-0421